Homecoming
by atree
Summary: After six years, a supposedly-dead Ruby returns to her old teammates. But something has changed. [A hero in one tale is a villain in another.] [Violence, White Rose with slight Bumblebee]
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Lightning Comes

The house was typical Yang, Ruby thought: big and boisterous and just a little bit falling apart. Finding it proved no difficulty; she had merely looked up _Xiao Long_ in the phone book, and though the house sat alone on the edge of town with neither number nor nameplate, from the moment Ruby had laid eyes on it she distinctly recognized it as _Yang_. Something of her sister lived in the yellow peeled bricks and marigold-flush lawn and the custom high-speed bike parked outside the garage. Her sister, it seemed, had done well for herself in the years after graduation.

Despite knowing what she came here to do, despite the exact measures Ruby had taken to harden her heart – she found it fluttering as she walked up the cracked stone steps, butterflies like her first day at Beacon. Her hand hovered on the doorbell, and with a burst of courage pressed down.

The door opened.

"Who are you?"

Who are you indeed, Ruby thought. Yang had changed over the last six years. She was taller, leaner, fuller, her hair thick as a lion's mane tumbling to her waist. The years had stripped away the fat from her body, turned her muscles into cordwood prominent in the light of the noon-day sun. Her skin had turned a light tan, decorated with a new repertoire of scars: one across her cheek, three more along her legs, a gash snaking from her neck to the top of her breasts, and she was not shy about them, no demure maiden, dressed in a flimsy tank top and shorts that displayed the scars proudly like treasured tattoos.

"Do I know you?" Yang said again, eyebrows scrunched up as if she were trying to remember something. Then the violet eyes turn clear. The pink lips dropped open, and Yang's entire body went slack as she took a step back, hands trembling as if the truth were a monster looming from the shadows:

"Ruby?"

"I'm back, sis," Ruby said quietly.

– and found herself lying on the grass, staring at a crystal-blue sky with her ears ringing from the impact of being run over by a freight truck. Yang lay on top of her, arms wrapped around Ruby's shoulders, her entire body shaking from the force of her laughter (or sobs?). The smell of her was so nostalgic Ruby almost cried: summers spent on Patch, the whirlwind days at Beacon, lifetimes and lifetimes ago. "I can't breathe," she gasped out, and Yang finally untangled herself, extending a hand.

"It's really you," Yang said. "I can't believe it. Ruby! It's really – " Her words crumbled into another fit of laughter. With a sudden exertion of force, she let out a breath, smiling at Ruby with periwinkle eyes. "If this is a dream, it's the most beautiful dream I've ever had. Come inside."

Same old Yang, Ruby thought with relief as they situated themselves in the living room. Never one to accept anything half-heartedly. If they were apart ten thousand years Ruby still would've recognized that smile, that voice, that laughter, closer to her than any other. And Yang, too, had recognized her, despite her own changes. They had spent eighteen years together, Ruby thought sadly. Two thirds of their lives.

Yang poured out two cups of sake ("I ran out of tea a few days ago," she said abashedly). It was a sweet milk blend, lukewarm. Yang's eyes never left her face, as if looking away would cause Ruby to vanish once more. No doubt Yang saw her as she had seen Yang: years of change condensed into a few moments, imagination grasping for the stories behind each stray scar and hem. So many questions. Which one to ask first? And in typical Yang fashion they exploded out all at once.

"Where've you been? It's been so long! We all thought you were…I mean, after that mission, we thought – we thought the worst had happened. It's been six years! You're back! I can't believe it! Have you told anyone else yet? What happened to you?"

Ruby turned the saucer in her hands. Considering what had to be done, there was no use in lying or even half-truths. Indeed, this entire conversation served no purpose. But she had wanted to talk with Yang again, even if only for a short while. Ruby's fingers played with the handle of Crescent Rose sheathed beneath her cloak; the weight of it was comforting. Many times she had imagined this conversation in her head, but the her in real life was not nearly as eloquent as the her in her imagination.

"I survived the Grimm ambush. For the last six years I've trained. And I've come back now, to do what needs to be done."

The detachedness of her voice made Yang raised an eyebrow. Ruby read the uncertainty there: _You've changed_. "We've all changed," Ruby thought aloud, and Yang flinched.

"And what about you?" Ruby said, gesturing around her. The room was a tribute to bloodshed. The table was lined with Grimm fur, sitting atop a Grimmskin rug, and the skullmasks of Ursas and Beowolves and a huge grinning Taijuu lined the walls. The air smelled of lemon and preservatives. Was it revenge? Ruby thought. An overreaction against the race that had killed her sister? But an undercurrent of violence had always ran through Yang; perhaps it had not needed any stoking. There, on the mantelpiece – a picture of the four of them during the Beacon graduation, all smiling, and on Ruby's face: a faint blotch, as if a teardrop had once landed there.

"I've been working as a Huntress," Yang said. "The government picked me up after graduation, but I quit after a few years. I do freelance work now, mostly bounty hunting. Picked up a new hobby, too. Everything you see in here – " she grinned " – I've personally killed and stuffed. How do you like the collection?"

"You've made quite the name for yourself." Hushed purrs in the dark-time before sunrise: _Lightning comes. Sleep, my child, or the stormbringer will slaughter you._ A hero in one tale is a villain in another.

And they were all so unaware of it, Ruby thought, gazing out the window to the rest of Vale beyond.

"Part of me knew," Yang spoke in a tight voice, as if someone's fingers were around her throat. "We all waited for you. We thought you'd come back again, walk back into our lives as if you'd never left. Over the years it became harder and harder to hope. But I _knew_ – what do they say about sisters? – that you were – " Her voice choked, and she closed her eyes, and she laughed, and Ruby, too, found herself smiling, and put a hand on her chest to still her traitorous heart beating beneath her cloak.

Yang turned away, clearing her throat. "Weiss and Blake will be overjoyed to know you're alive. Have you told them yet?"

"No. Where are they?"

"Weiss is the head of the Schnee Dust company now. Strange how things turn out, huh? After all the talk of being a Huntress! We still talk from time to time, but she's busy most of the time. Blake…I'm not sure. I haven't heard from her in years." Yang's voice turned quiet. Her hair fell over her eyes. She spoke to her hands. "We broke up after you disappeared. For a while we stuck together – waiting, I think. But it didn't last. Too many painful memories. We each blamed ourselves. How did you…How did you survive? The rest of us barely made it out of that forest. I wanted to go back – we all wanted to go back. For you. But the Grimm outnumbered the trees, and we were already so injured, and there were the townspeople to think of…by next morning the entire forest was gone – but we tried, Ruby, we tried, I swear!"

Yang's voice turned into a sob. And this, too, was Yang as Ruby remembered her. It would be better for her if I stayed dead, Ruby realized; no matter what Yang said, no matter what Yang herself thought she wanted – she had already accepted her sister's death. Ruby wanted to reach out and bring her close, as she had dreamed many times during the separation, the torture, the delusions (perhaps this, too, was another fevered dream?). I've never blamed you, Ruby thought, or Blake or Weiss. How can I hate my own flesh and blood? But six years cannot be discarded like a moth-eaten cloak.

Ruby set down her saucer of sake. When she spoke her voice was cold.

"The Grimm killed me that night. I died, and I was reborn. They flayed into me the truth of the world. I see now, as I've never seen before."

Doubt ran across Yang's face, then turned slowly to fear.

"The first truth of the world: the innocent are the most prone to corruption. The second truth: all that you believe is the opposite of what is real. The third truth: within every love lies the start of hate." Ruby drew Crescent Rose from her waist, extending to its full length the pale black blade, surface undulating like obese worms. "The fourth truth of the world: those who rule it are the least deserving to rule."

Yang's face sickened. At last she seemed to realize something had gone wrong. Crescent Rose snaked through the air. Yang brought up Ember Celica, but she was slow, rusted creaking joints. It was obvious that she still did not understand, did not see what was in front of her eyes, or refused to see. If dreams came true did you question the dreammaker? Crescent Rose tore into Yang's body. From the wound sprouted thick black liquid, tearing through Aura like acid, eating into the flesh. Yang screamed. Crescent Rose arched back, then swung from the other side, cutting deep into Yang's shoulder with a _squelch_ like a feasting animal. Desperately, Yang's fingers scrabbled against the handle, trying to force it free. Ruby pressed deeper, like pressing a hot knife into a steak. Black liquid oozed. Yang tried to speak and made only wet choking noises. She looked at Ruby with confused, clouded eyes.

"A hundred times I died. A hundred days and a hundred nights. You think you know pain? You do _not_ – " Ruby's voice cracked, and the scream died in her throat " – know pain. At last I saw. Bones of glass. Hills of flesh. Soldiers killing infants and welcomed as heroes. Have you ever been to a cannibal shop? The meat there is the sweetest in the world. Two arms and two legs are not enough. Give us eyes, mother, so we may lead the blind. When judgement comes, you will beg for what I had to go through." Then, in a whisper: "I love you, sis."

Crescent Rose came down, bifurcating Yang from shoulder to thigh. Yang's legs sank to the floor; her torso rolled once, twice, came to a stop before the maw of a Beowolf skull. The Grimm seem to be laughing. Shaking, Ruby sheathed Crescent Rose, with difficulty; the weapon snarled, sucking at the pooling blood. Yang's face, frozen in that rictus of disbelief, followed Ruby as she stumbled to the door. I loved her, she thought. And because I loved her, I killed her.

One down, two to go.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: The Hunted

In the darkness, Ruby waited.

The house breathed around her. She smelled dirt and rotten meat and the metal smell of blood. She did not want to be here. The silence like death. Outside lay the forest, and she wished she was there instead, cold as it was, desolate as it was, in the Grimm-infested wilds of Mistral. The darkness was too familiar. In the darkness, they flayed her, cut her, burned her, drowned her, impaled her, crushed her. Parasites burrowing beneath her skin. Acid digesting her from the outside in. What purpose lay behind it all? At first she had prayed for rescue. Then she had prayed for death. At last she had begun to see –

The door burst open. Three figures stood in the moonlight, hidden by cowls, but their silhouettes bore the unmistakable contours of Faunus. The one in the lead (cat: ears protruding from her hood) strode forward. She drew her sword, its ribbon flapping in the wind.

"We found you, at last," the Faunus said. Her voice was cold and vehement. "Did you think you could escape us, hiding in this place? Did you hope we would forget? You will answer for your crimes against Faunus."

Ruby stood, and dropped her hood.

The Faunus stopped. A gust blew in, rustling her ears. The night was bitterly cold. Behind her, the other two Faunus took a hesitant half-step forward.

"You're not Geissler," she said.

Ruby stepped aside.

The moonlight shone upon a body, half-eaten. The main part of it had been voraciously torn in to. The rest of it was smeared across the floor. Cold had turned the flesh the color of lilacs and the blood into little clotted islands. Rats and maggots congregated on the bits of flesh that remained, chittering, buzzing, nibbling on stray finger-knuckles. It was impossible to tell whether the body had been male or female. But a few feet away lay a journal, bound in fine brown fur, opened to a blood-smeared page: _Experiment #27. Limits of pain tolerance of bear Faunus…_

"The professor," she said flatly. "You killed him."

"You're a difficult girl to find," Ruby said. "But I knew who you were looking for, and all I had to do was find him first. But I got bored of waiting, and I thought, hey, if you were going to kill him anyway…"

"Who are you?"

"You know who I am, Blake."

Blake's gold eyes dilated in the darkness, peering at Ruby's face. Then she jumped, hackles raised, like a cat doused in cold water. Her reaction was so funny Ruby laughed. It reminded her of their third-year Beacon dance, when Yang had finally worked up the courage to ask Blake out; the Faunus had shown the same reaction then, an animal caught in the headlights, while Yang's face got redder and redder until her embarrassment exploded out in the form of a shotgun-rocket that destroyed their dorm wall. Blake had said yes (of course), and the dance had gone excellently (of course), but afterwards they had spent three months on cleanup duty to pay for the damages.

To Blake's credit, her countenance was disturbed for only a second, a boulder smashing into a lake's surface before the waters stilled once more. She turned to the other two Faunus and nodded; they vanished into the night.

Gambol Shroud transformed, the barrel staring into Ruby's eyes.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Ruby."

"Ruby's dead."

"So I was." Ruby smiled. Always so suspicious. But that, too, was part of Blake. She was thinner than Ruby remembered, gaunt as an alley cat, with heavy purple bags under her eyes that made the gold of her pupils stand out like stars. Her ears – her Faunus ears – always so intricately groomed, were ragged, the fur clumped together, and her once waist-length hair, too, had fallen into disarray. Even her weapon was worn, brown flecks of rust mottling the barrel. At Ruby's words, the arm holding Gambol Shroud wavered, then strengthened once more. This one was a predator still.

"You're lying."

Soft lies, sweet lies, gentle lies. Were they a bad thing? Ruby shook her head.

"Come on, Blake, it's me! Have you really forgotten what your old teammate looked like? Hmm…oh, I know. Remember that time in our third year when Weiss taught you how to make chocolates? And you couldn't even boil the water right? You almost burned down the kitchen! And remember that time you accidentally confused Red Sap for strawberry jam? And during that field trip to Vacuo when you – "

"Shut up!" Blake seemed to be trying very hard to stop herself from shooting Ruby on the spot. "If you are Ruby, how did you survive? I saw, that night. I saw the Grimm kill you. _I saw them kill you_."

Ruby shrugged. "Eyes can deceive."

"Why did you kill Geissler? How did you know he was here? How did you know we were hunting him?"

Ruby put on a mock-hurt expression. "This is the welcome I get? It's been a long six years, I get it, but that's no excuse to treat your old teammate like a stranger! What've you been up to?"

Blake's face remained impassive, but the subtle twitches of the eyebrow, the centimeter-baring of fangs, the ears pressed flat against her head, spoke to someone who knew her well the turmoil that bubbled beneath the skin; how little our habits change, Ruby thought. She reached out a hand. Blake growled, stepping back. But she did not shoot. Ruby touched Blake's face, and the skin was smooth but hard, the muscles underneath knotted like rope worn frayed by tension. Oh Blake, Ruby thought, the years have not been kind to you. Softly, she said, "It's good to see you again."

Blake started at her touch, reflexively pulled away. "I don't believe you're her. I can't believe it. You left us."

"I didn't want to."

"If you were alive all this time, why didn't you come back sooner?"

Ruby shook her head. "I wish I could have."

"If you had been alive – if you were here – then everything – nothing would've been like it was!"

Her voice was that of a child's, high and trembling. You were as sensitive as the rest of us, Ruby thought, despite how much you tried to deny it. And also visible in that somber figure standing in the half-shadow was the loneliness, as painful for her as it was for anyone else, that Blake also desperately tried to conceal. Gently, Ruby embraced her. Her body was as taut as a violin string. The smell of sweat and dirt (and bizarrely, a hint of tuna) was oddly comforting.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize how much you suffered."

"The revolution was betrayed," Blake said bitterly. "After you died, our team fell apart. Yang and I fell apart. We destroyed the White Fang, but it accomplished nothing. The backlash against what the White Fang did was worse. Nothing that was promised was delivered. We were hunted, more than ever. Even those who had only wanted peace! They stopped Faunus from becoming Huntresses. Can you imagine that? My whole life, trained for one thing, and just when I reached it – gone! _The revolution was betrayed_. And I – I bore it all alone!"

The words streamed out of her as if dammed. Her voice choked on the last words, and Ruby squeezed her tighter, fingers laced over that frail heartbeat.

Blake's voice grew harsh. "I was wrong. I see that now. The White Fang was right. Protests and prayers are meaningless. People will not change unless you force them. The second revolution is beginning. And we will not stop until we take back everything that was ours."

"You're too kind for that." We're both of us broken, Ruby thought. But while I was pieced back together imperfectly, you were not pieced back together at all. Even without looking at that malnourished body and worn-out clothes, you only needed to look at Blake's face, at the sunken eyes and cheeks as if she had been left to rot in the sun. "But I'm here now, with you. Soon it'll be like old times again. You, me, Weiss, and Yang. All of us, together. You'll see Yang again soon."

Blake half-turned toward her, eyes shining like silver pools, with a child's blind hopefulness and a child's blind trust. Ruby's heart squeezed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Ruby repeated as she reached beneath her cloak. More than anything else in the world she wished she didn't have to do it. But the scythe was already in her hands, the blade already braced against Blake's stomach, and she was already pressing down, metal biting into flesh.

Blake pushed her away. She stood there bewildered, looking at Ruby with the same uncomprehending eyes Yang had, as if waking from a dream, or finding out she was in one. Trembling, Blake's finger traced the thin line of blood along her stomach.

"Why?"

"Because I, too, have suffered." Ruby advanced, Crescent Rose humming insatiably in her hand. "You were right. The Grimm killed me that night, and the night after, and the night after. And after one hundred days of torture they stopped to worship me. Have you ever eaten a beating heart? Served on a platter of bone, dressed in fresh-squeezed blood? Could use a bit more salt. When you're dead your corpse will nourish the living."

Shock turned to fury; fury turned to coldness. Blake spat. She said nothing, merely placed two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

No sound came.

Then the two Faunus burst through the door. Ruby fired off two shots from Crescent Rose, bullets shattering harmlessly against wood in bursts of black oil fireworks. The first Faunus was a dog breed, slashing at her with a pair of daggers. Ruby dodged the first strike, dodged the second strike, and as she reared up Crescent Rose for a counterblow, a line of pain seared down her back. The second Faunus – deer's horns – leapt back from Ruby's wild retaliation swing, her spear tip black with Ruby's blood. Ruby turned towards her, then from the corner of her eyes saw Blake rushing forward. Gambol Shroud flickered like a mirror shard in the moonlight. Ruby slashed at her with Crescent Rose, but where scythe-blade should've met flesh there was no resistance, like slashing smoke. Then Blake was behind her, driving her blade into Ruby's right shoulder deep enough to scrape the bone. The soft _click_ of a trigger. The explosion whited out the world, and when everything came back into focus, Ruby reached out an arm to steady herself, only to find nothing there, scraps of flesh and cloth fluttering where her arm should've been.

Crescent Rose clattered against the floor, its handle still gripped by Ruby's phantom hand. The scythe writhed like a dying snake.

The Faunus grew bold. The cat came from her left, the deer from her right. Ruby read the triumph in their eyes. A pair of daggers aimed toward her throat, a spear aimed at her heart – and then the two Faunus stopped, looking dumbly down. Thick black tendrils protruded from their chests. The tendril's tips ran slick with blood where they came out the other side. The Faunus squirmed like fish on a hook. Another dozen tendrils shot out beneath Ruby's cloak, twining around their arms and legs and _pulling_. Wet gurgling noises. Skin ripped like paper. Gambol Shroud danced nimbly through the air, cutting them free, the corpses. With a _squelch_ , bits and pieces of the Faunus landed on the floor.

Blake's face twisted in disgust. For a half-second she met Ruby's eyes, weapon gripped tightly in her fingers, body coiled to spring. In the distance a Beowolf howled.

She turned to run. Following animalistic instincts before a superior predator. Blake made it halfway to the door before a tendril wrapped around her ankle. She cut it off, but a hundred more had replaced it, and she was spinning, slashing, dancing among the tendrils thick as a forest. One pierced her thigh. She cried out in pain, tried to cut herself free, couldn't, because another tendril had wrapped around her thin wrist. It squeezed. There was a sharp crack, and her hand went limp, and Gambol Shroud fell to the floor. The rest of the tendrils converged on her, squirming over her body like monstrous worms.

Ruby glided forward. The entire bottom half of her body was blackness. She could feel Blake struggling, could feel with a million fingers the thin, hard body twisting in her grasp. A black ribbon grew from Ruby's shoulder, elongating into white cords of bone. More strands emerged, intertwining to form muscle and tendon, not red but ash gray, with ink-colored veins, and finally a covering of skin, until her arm was whole and new once more.

Blake looked at her with horror and not a bit of wonder.

"What are you?"

"A lie. An icon. A goddess. A ghost." Playfully, a tendril stroked Blake's face, leaving a line of raw, open blisters. "Those who are loved, need love least. The truths of the world are plain to see. Who only has two eyes? I have a third one here, on my forehead. See? Power is knowledge transferred from flesh to mouth. Metamorphosis is painful. But in the end, you shall be free."

"Get it over with," Blake snarled. Yet she no longer struggled. And was that the moonlight, or did her eyes seem relieved?

Ruby picked up Crescent Rose. The scythe purred, glad to be with its master. "You want to die," Ruby thought aloud. She braced the blade against Blake's neck. "Six years of injustice. The world is too cruel. That's why it must be changed. We offer the small mercies."

You didn't deserve what happened to you, Ruby thought sadly as Blake's body fell limply forward, joining the three others on the floor. The rats chittered excitedly.

But then again, who did? The tendrils retracted beneath Ruby's cloak, briefly bloating out her silhouette, and then she was a girl once more, wearing a ragged red hood with one arm strangely bare. She stepped out of the house into the winter air like knives. It only got harder, she reflected, picking her way through the cracked, dead earth. With each murder part of herself died. Soon nothing of her past would remain. But there was one more left, the most difficult one of all.


	3. Chapter 3

Glass

The guards stood motionless by the door. Dressed in full combat armor, they held their weapons with the casual ease of veterans, peering out beneath thermal-vision helmets whose red visor lights blinked as steadily as an eye. Security at the Schnee mansion was a perfect marriage of Atlesian technology with millionaires' paranoia. But she was patient, patient: What was a few hours compared to six years? The night wore on. The moon rose to its apex. The shadows lengthened beneath the windows, as imperceptible as aging wine, until, at midnight, the shadows touched the door as gently as a lover's caress, smoothly, silently, steadily flowing like ink to the other side, where the shadows pooled and coalesced into a shoe, stockings, a skirt, a hood: As the last of the trickle died, Ruby rose, and found herself at the heart of the Schnee mansion – Weiss's office.

The office had changed little from her memories. The Schnee headquarters that daily decided the transfers of millions of yuan and the livelihood of equally many was a massive dome designed for opulence, lined with a carpet lush as a meadow. Velvet covered the furniture, embroidered with the intricate snowflake design of the Schnee name. The Company's founders ringed the room, staring at her behind grim, painted eyes. There, at the very end, below a silver-rimmed plaque that carried the words _Alis volas proprii_ , hung the portraits of Jacques and Whitley. A pair of candles burned on a nearby stand, bathing the room in a soft purple light. Ruby took a deep breath. The smell of lavender filled her, sweet as a first kiss.

And in the center of the room, sitting behind a mahogany desk overladen with papers, was _her_. She was as beautiful as Ruby remembered – no, more beautiful. Absence made the heart grow fonder. Weiss had not so much as grown as matured. She had been a beautiful girl at Beacon – a girl. Now she was every inch a woman. Her figure had filled out in the silver dress that left her arms and back bare, and her hair had been pulled into a bun, held together, Ruby was pleased to see, by the gold-and-jade pin she had given her for her seventeenth birthday. Weiss's eyes were slimmer, more almond-shaped; her eyebrows furrowed as she read a document on her desk, lips pursed together, and if she had an imperfection it was the first signs of wrinkles appearing at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

Weiss glanced up. "Who are you?" she snapped, reaching for the buzzer. "I said no more visitors…"

Her voice fell off, and a strange expression came over her features. Like ice melting in the midday sun. Ruby reached out a hand. Weiss stared at it as if she had never seen the appendage before, or never expected to – an expression of fear. She hates me, Ruby thought, her breath stopped. She blames me. She doesn't remember who I am. She's moved on –

Hesitantly, as if unsure whether it was real or mirage, Weiss took Ruby's hand.

"You're back," she said.

"I'm back."

And the years dissolved away. Ruby laughed, and it was perhaps the first genuine laugh she had experienced in years; and Weiss, too, smiled, and perhaps it was the same for her. Ruby bent down, murmuring into Weiss's hair, "I missed you," and the statement was so small, so incapable of bridging the vast canyon between emotion and communication. But that was the understanding of intimates, wasn't it? To understand what could not be said. Weiss closed her eyes, and leaned back in her chair, and her fingers drew circles on Ruby's palm.

"It's really you. You've come back to us. I didn't believe the reports."

"The Grimm captured me. But now I'm free. To set the world right."

Curiosity gleamed in Weiss's eyes, but she nodded, slowly, and asked no questions. Ruby was glad for the small kindness. What mattered was _now_ – not before or after – and she wanted nothing to ruin the perfection of the moment, the beauty of the moment, the sanctity of the moment; Weiss, more than anyone else, she didn't want to know. Ignorance was the greatest mercy. At her waist, Crescent Rose shuddered, hungering; Weiss's eyes darted there and back. Am I ashamed? Ruby wondered. No, merely guilty. Or are the two the same? Let love remain pure. Her end will be a blade across the throat, life and nerves severed before the brain could even process betrayal.

But now there was only the moment. Ruby sat down at the edge of the desk, enjoying the feeling of velvet under her hands, her feet dangling off the edge. "CEO of the Schnee Dust Company, huh? Looks like your dream came true."

"Whitley's reign proved short-lived." Weiss smiled, and her smile held a cruelty that was not present six years ago.

"I thought you didn't care about being CEO. You said you wanted to be a Huntress."

On the roof of the school, on a summer night alive with fireflies, Weiss and Ruby stood together with the campus and its students spread out beneath them like an ocean. Even so late at night, Beacon was alive with activity. In the half-light, students milled around campus, talking, playing sports, unwinding after a long day of class. The tenebrosity wrapped around them like a blanket. The sound of laughter drifted upwards, quieted, like the warmth from a fire. The two of them – they were holding hands, Ruby remembered. And in that murmuring darkness, Weiss had confessed that –

"I didn't want to be the leader of the Schnee Dust Company. I didn't want to spend my days at drab business meetings, pouring over finances. I didn't want to be a Schnee at all." Weiss rose from her chair with an imperious toss of her hair. "It took me a long time to realize it. What I wanted most was to be with you. With Yang and Blake, as part of team RWBY. Hunting down Grimm. Saving lives. Having _fun_."

 _And they embraced to the music of summer sparrows, and the air smelled of lavender…_

"But then you were gone," Weiss continued softly. "Our team fell apart. Yang and Blake and I couldn't even look each other in the eye. Everything I cared about – gone. But even then, I still wanted to become a Huntress. You don't know how much I miss it. The wind against your face. Aura crackling against your skin. The adrenaline in your veins. I think there's something wrong with us Huntresses. Or is it the other way around? Maybe it's the job that changes you. I was ready to continue, with or without a team."

"Why didn't you?"

"For you." Weiss met Ruby's gaze, and the look in her eyes was both tender and full of steel, like a blade wrapped beneath a silken sheet. "We searched the forest the next morning. We found a lot of corpses – Grimm, Huntresses, civilians. But no trace of you. They said your body was probably among the unidentified. Mauled so badly their loved ones wouldn't have recognized them. Or perhaps eaten, or torn into a dozen little parts. Those were the most likely explanations." She paced back and forth, biting her lip. "But for me, it meant hope."

"So long as your body didn't wash up on some half-forgotten shore, so long as they didn't identify your DNA among the dismembered parts, there was the chance you were alive. A chance so small it wasn't worth considering at all. But hope…hope is a strange thing." Weiss laughed, a sound both joyful and bitter, and Ruby instinctively recognized that same desperation pent up within herself all those days in exile, clinging on to that single fleck of a flawless future which kept her – both of them – sane. "So long as you have hope you don't need anything else. And once you taste it, you can never let go. As long as the possibility existed that you were alive, I had to chase it. And for that, I need the Schnee name."

"After I became CEO, I've sank every spare resource into find out what happened that night. The Grimm did not behave like Grimm. They fought like an army. Drawing us out into the open. Using diversions. Ambushing us when we were alone. Someone – or something – was controlling them. If I could find out what really happened, then I had a hope of finding you. But it was like trying to catch shadow with your fingers. All my leads came up blank. My agents died inexplicably. I felt like I was struggling inside a great web that's been there for decades, centuries, perhaps, and no matter how hard I struggled, every movement I made was already anticipated." Weiss stopped pacing, face heavily lidded by shadow; the whites of her eyes glanced at Ruby. "At last, after countless years, after countless sacrifices, I finally learned – a word. A whisper. A name."

The air began to freeze. Frost blossomed on Ruby's cloak. She shivered uncontrollably.

" _Salem._ "

The rain fell in sheets, _pit-pattering_ against the windows. Weiss looked at Ruby with a gaze cold and inscrutable. Myrtenaster lay unsheathed on Weiss's desk. The naked blade, long and slender, seemed to ripple as the shadows of raindrops dappled the metal.

"After years of searching, my dream's finally come true," Weiss continued quietly. "You're back."

Ruby nodded, hesitatingly.

"But are you truly free?"

"It's me, Weiss. It's really me," Ruby said, and there was a quiver of uncertainty in her voice. She touched Weiss's cheek; the flesh was cold. "The last six years, I could never stop thinking about you. The pain I could withstand, but not the separation. Does it matter? Does anything? I'm here with you, now. And we'll be together for the rest of your days."

Weiss turned away from her touch. "I didn't want to believe the reports. Yang and Blake, dead. I thought there must be another explanation."

And it was over. A dream shattered – but whose? Ruby laughed, a sound like breaking glass, ugly even to her own ears. Weiss recoiled. Why do you look at me like that? Ruby thought but could not bring herself to say. The smell of perfume in the room was overpowering. A million crushed flower petals bleeding lavender scents. Her head throbbed like a beating heart. She needed air, the earth beneath her feet, the open sky above. In the distance sounded the howls of Beowolves and the screeching of Nevermores and the trampling of a Goliath.

"There's still hope," Weiss said. "Come with us. You can still be saved."

"Do you know how glass is made?" Ruby spoke to the moonlight. "Apply intense heat and pressure to metal over a long period of time. The metal's structure breaks down. It forgets what it originally was. Afterwards, you can reshape it into anything you choose. Any tool. Nobody would be able to tell what form it originally took, not even the metal itself."

"There's still time – "

"An endless ocean of corpses. Rotting and foul, meals for the old and sickened. The most perfect tools require the most perfect materials. One Grimm devours another. Link to link of cannibalism, the flesh as sweet as ripe fruit. The reward is death. Mother, why does it hurt?"

"So this is what you've become. What she's turned you in to."

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Ruby sobbed. "Everything was supposed to be like it was."

Weiss looked at her sadly.

"Nothing will ever be like it was."

The doors burst open. Soldiers poured in. Through her tears, Ruby saw the soldiers as a swarm of blinking red eyes shining through black fog, and Weiss as a brilliant blur. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she wailed. "We were supposed to be happy!"

Weiss's face was as emotionless as a glacier, but her eyes, too, were wet and glassy and rippled like light under a pool. She opened her mouth. No sound came, and she swallowed, as if choking down poison. She said, "Capture her. We need her alive – "

An explosion. A burst of red against the windows, followed by flashes of light. The manor shook. Weiss turned. The soldiers stumbled, and in that brief moment Crescent Rose jumped into Ruby's hands, elongating into a long, hard ribbon the thickness of a piece of paper. She swung. Crescent Rose swept the room in a half-circle, a high-pitched whistling like wind through a keyhole. The soldiers remained perfectly still. Then their upper halves toppled over, cut as cleanly as a surgery knife through frozen meat.

Weiss's gaze remained fixed outside. In the darkness, great shadows loomed by the light of city fires too vast to be extinguished by rain. The city was in smoke. People screaming. The sound of gunshots and bestial howls and buildings collapsing like sand castles.

"What have you done?"

"One sheep leads the others to the slaughterhouse. And so its own life is spared. The beasts were here first. You forged the knives that will slit your own throats. And the blood will flow like spring water."

Myrtenaster gleamed in Weiss's hands. The air behind her flickered, condensing into beautiful, ornate sigils, but Ruby was already upon her, Crescent Rose tearing through Weiss's Semblance with the voracity of an animal. The sigils shattered like icicles. Weiss lashed out with Myrtenaster, razor tip weaving fine silver threads, but she was slow and hesitant, years of office work had made her slow and hesitant. A broken ballerina taking to the stage for one final swan song. There was an intensity in Weiss's eyes and a smile on her lips _. I think there's something wrong with us Huntresses_. Crescent Rose snarled, eager for blood. Ruby held it back. Let the two of them dance a while longer –

 _In the velvet-draped ballroom of the Beacon Dance, beneath a crystal chandelier lined with a hundred candles, they spun around on outstretched arms, alternatingly close and apart, and although she was slow and clumsy, her partner confidently led her through the steps, long silver hair fluttering behind her in tempo with the orchestra playing in the far corner, around and around and around_

– and Weiss stopped. She looked at Ruby with wide, glassy eyes. Crescent Rose sank into her neck, edges sucking hungrily at the blood that spilled like claret from the tap. Myrtenaster glowed blue, purple, white, then fell from her fingers. Weiss opened her mouth. The faint burble of blood. Her body fell slack.

Sirens in the distance. The manor shook. A great winged shadow passed over the moon.

Gently, Ruby laid Weiss down on the floor. She was as light as a thing made of feathers. A dull beat pulsed in Ruby's chest. That beautiful, motionless form, as if waiting to wake with a kiss. Ruby, too, wanted to sleep. Forever, and to dream. Instead, she touched Weiss's face, traced the curve of her brow and the ridge of her nose to the arch of her lips ( _that once tasted of – )_ , where a dribble of blood leaked from the corner, staining her fingers. Crescent Rose strained towards the corpse, quivering like a set of salivating teeth. Ruby sheathed the scythe. With two fingers, she closed Weiss's eyes.

She thought: Now I am truly dead.

The door opened. A Beowulf skulked in, sniffing the air. It carried a severed arm in its maw. Ruby ran her fingers along its fur. It purred. Downstairs, the servants were screaming. Gunshots, abruptly cut short, followed by the roars of Grimm. The air was hot with the smell of smoke and sulfur.

"It's starting," Ruby said, stroking Weiss's hair. "What you were searching for."

Around them, the city burned.

* * *

A/N: Epilogue in a few days.


	4. Epilogue

Epilogue

The rain was letting up. Hood down, Ruby trudged up the hill, enjoying the feeling of droplets on her skin. A mist lingered in the air, thick as steam, and rarely through the whiteness she glimpsed running figures, chased by the silhouettes of larger beasts. But only rarely. The first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon. The smell of grass rose from the earth. Except for the occasional howl, the city was quiet.

At last she crested the hill. On the edge, overlooking the city, stood five figures.

"Took you long enough," said Watts, glancing at his pocket watch.

Next to him, Hazel nodded in greeting. Tyrion watched her out of the corner of his eyes, giggling. A small distance away, apart from the rest, Cinder looked up and looked back away.

"It is done," Salem said.

She stood at the edge of the cliff, staring down at the remnants of Atlas's capital like an idol raised up high. The sun rose behind her, blinding. The red sclera of her eyes swirled like hurricanes.

"It's done," Ruby said in a tired voice.

"Poor thing," Hazel murmured. Tyrion cackled.

"And how do you feel, my summer maiden?" Salem strode forward, the swirl of her cloak blackening the grass beneath her steps. "The foremost Huntress of Remnant. The leader of the Faunus Liberation Army. The CEO of the world's largest Dust company. No easy initiation. Our mission is now made all the easier. Were you glad to see them? To end their lives?"

"I don't know. Tired."

Salem smiled. Or was it a sneer? The veins on her face twisted like snakes.

 _A traitor who has betrayed once can betray again._ Ruby closed her eyes and burned the words into her core until she could see the fiery promise swimming through the empty universe of her eyelids. But it will not be out of love – out of hate. She kept the secret hidden in the innermost chamber of her thoughts, clutching it close to her heart like a treasured bauble. In the sun-drenched fog, her eyes moved one by one over her teammates, lingering on the spider-like form of Salem. Her chest burned, as if someone had scooped out her heart and replaced it with bile. She felt as if she had spent the last six years crying. Perhaps she had. One long eternal weep without tears.

"It's time to go," Salem said. "Ironwood has requested aid from Vale's teams. We shall meet them."

 _A traitor who has betrayed once can betray again –_ with relish _._

Smiling, Ruby followed.

* * *

A/N: Part what-if scenario, part character study, this was a short and edgy idea I had. If the story seemed abrupt, it's because I had never intended to take it beyond the admittedly vague premise of "stuff happens and Ruby goes around killing her former teammates." It was a fun exercise building a story around a plot more unsaid than said. I hope you all enjoyed reading.


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